Gabriel Tual progression

He was 4th at Worlds at 21 years old and then was 7th last year. At the rate we're going, that 1:42.77 would be lucky to get him 4th at this Olympics. There isn't a lot to really be suspicious about in his profile other than him being a likely Olympic finalist once again.

It is more than likely that Monaco will be fast, but I think Arop getting the win would be most important. If he goes 1:42-flat, and two other guys just did what Wanyoni and Sedjati did in that race, then I think that would be a bigger panic than going 1:43-high and winning.

I think any analysis should be done with its context.

For instance all the runners ran fast in this one. Not just Tual. Why were they all dragged? Even Habz PRed.

Wanyony is here to get the WR, it is clear in his mindset and objectives.

Sedjati is in freak form, it does look like Ramzi reborn.

Tual is the reigning European champion. Big confidence boost.

The Olympics are coming and they are fit.

Now Wanyony blasted like a rocket, and Sedjati and Tual were like: we'll get you on the second lap. With 250/200m to go they both started to move.

Now what I found a bit suspicious is this:

- Tual covering the move with 200 to go when the pace was already dirty hoy

- Sedjati easily escaping and showing no signs of fatigue till the end and even after

- Wanyony being able to regroup after having been passed. Generally when that happens it s over. 800m is just one move, not two.

- Tual really going for it in the end.

They were really fast during these last 100m when generally you start to pay so much for the previous 700m. All 3, they looked a little bit too good at the end. But can you really run 1'41"mid without looking too good...

Retire bro. You are delulu if you don’t think doping was rampant in Paris yesterday.

What I find so interesting about this surge in the 800 is that I think that fundamentally the equipment has not changed. I posted in the other 800 thread about this but Sedjati is wearing original model Dragonflys (effectively the same shoes around in 2020 that helped Cheptegei set the 5k and 10k records). Tual and Wanyonyi, as well as Hoppel, Kessler, and Arop are all adidas athletes and have been racing in the ambitions but, again, I don't think there is a fundamental change in the spikes that would take Tual, who was 1:44 in recent seasons and up until this weekend, blowing past the likes of Bosse and Coe on the all-time list.

What is also puzzling me is that Tual and Benjamin Robert were fairly comparable athletes, both French and both hovering in the low 1:44 - 1:43 range. Robert is a Nike athlete and Tual is adidas but both ran on the Paris track this weekend. Tual improved dramatically while Robert ran 1:44. I think Wanyonyi's form has certainly helped others, as he can almost be the new Rudisha and drag others in his wake but I'm still struggling to make sense of this season's 800 and this race in particular. The dismissive "doping" comments to me are lazy but it's hard to deny that this race produced suspicious improvement that is not easily explained. I would love to see some robust analysis of this, as it has been pointed out in the other thread, the 800 seems to have exploded again suddenly. I think many would have considered it one of the weakest events at the last Olympics but now it is looking back to its best and many long standing records have fallen or been placed in athlete's crosshairs. In general I would say that it is not unusual in 2024 for three athletes to run under a 1981 world record but history has shown historical 800 times typically stand up strong to even today's improvements so to see that happen is a big surprise.

Many doubts come because the best seasons for 800m were 40 years ago, and current athletic fans don't have historical memory of the past.

At the end of 1985, we have already 5 athletes under 1'43" :

Coe 1'41"73, Cruz 1'41"77, Sammy Koskei 1'42"28, Johnny Gray 1'42"60 and Cram 1'42"88.

Coached by my friend Gianni Ghidini (they lived for 6 months per year in Bussolengo, near Verona, in Italy), at the beginning of 2000 years there were Wilfred Bungei 1'42"34 (2002), Gregory Konchellah (Yusuf Kamal) 1'42"79, William Yampoy 1'42"91, and I know all these performances were achieved by athletes in absolutely clean way. There were not special shoes, also the tracks were not like today.

So, we can say that short distances (800 - 1500m) for men didn't improve, since the same athletes of 40 years ago, with the same training methodology, could still now be able to win Olympic and to better WR.

The same didn't happen in longer distances : the improvement in 5000, 10000 and Marathon in the last 40 years was very big, and we can say the training method changed dramatically.

I don't see any reason for thinking that athletes able today to achieve the same performances of 40 years ago must use doping, while the athletes of 40 years ago were clean (at least, of sure they didn't use EPO that still didn't exist).

Seb Coe and clean do not belong in the same sentence. Yes, they weren't on EPO. It was steroids. Not sure about the others, but I am confident that Coe was taking steroids.

So easy to just write "I'm confident" but to show the proof not so much. I'm not saying he was clean. But I won't say he was doping since I don't really know.
Then next person reading your "I'm confident" will write: I "know" Seb Coe was on steroids because he/she thinks you know.

Physique, speed, lack of fatigue and recent rumors of him helping British athletics cover up tests at the London Olympics (cough, Jess Ennis, cough).

Yeah, Coe's 3D shoulders and bulging biceps were legendary. He was the male version of
Kratochvílová. And those oxygen devouring steroid muscles definitely help you avoid fatigue at the end of a 1500m. There have been recent rumors that Schwarzenegger at his biggest in the 70's could run a sub 5 minute mile with no training and no fatigue if he tried.

What I found interesting when looking at all-time performance lists between 800 and 1500 was more to do with the number of high-level 1500 performances relative to the historical times vs the 800. Again, I posted this in the other thread but your mention of 1985 makes it very applicable because when I checked, the 110th all time 1500 performance was Cram's 1985 world record. On that same day, 110th all time 800 performance was 1:43.00. Now, that will be lowered a few spots now but it was shocking to me that a world record from 1985 in the 1500 was now 110th, meanwhile Coe's 1981 world record was sitting at 10th (now I guess it is 13th). I just now realized Cram's 800 is 100th on the all-time performance and higher than his 1500! Higher in his secondary event! So in ~40 years the 1500 world record becomes a time that pretty much all globally competitive runners should achieve but the older 800 record is still rare territory. So, to me, it suggests that 1500 behaves more like a distance event, in that times have improved more like you say in the 5000m+ but the 800 times have still stagnated, though recently a big uptick.

The biggest thing I can think of as a factor is, as you say the training. I agree that longer distances have seen dramatic improvements in training and have reaped those benefits but I think the 1500 should be grouped here too. I don't think double threshold is the "magic bullet" that makes people able to run sub 3:30 but I think training like that has allowed more 1500s to accrue a high volume of quality training WHILE STAYING HEALTHY! And here is maybe the biggest area I see a divergence in 1500 vs 800 training. I don't think there is any way to get around the high intensity sessions while being a competitive 800 runner. This training has inherent injury risk and this is, to me, what has held back 800 running at points.

No it's not!

Farah was favourite going into the Games. Yes, I think there was a lot to be suspicious of, but he was likely going to win medals.

Rutherford and Ennis Hill were also favourites in their events and merely lived up to their potential on the day. It's not as if they were also rans in their careers up to the London Olympics and suddenly emerged just before the Games with huge personal bests.

Tual, at 26 and based on his 1:44 form the last 4 seasons, was unlikely to make the final before this week. Now, he's improved by 2.4 secs (that's 20m), gone #4 on all time list and is one of the favourites at a home Olympics.

There is no comparison between what he has done and what Rutherford and Ennis Hill did in 2012.

No one goes from 1:44.0 to 1:41.6 at 26 due to 'improved confidence!

Perhaps the track, which is clearly (from other results) super fast, and the shoes can get him to 1:43 flat/1:42 high in the right race, but with a 400m outing of 48.15 a few weeks ago, I don't buy that technology alone could be responsible for susch a seismic (2.4 secs) improvement. Even Sedjati only has a 400m pb of 47.2. You need 46 low at least to run 1:41.

CHEMININGWA, who is also 26 and came home 4th in 1:42.08, spent 2020, 21 and 22 languishing as a 1:49 runner. Last year he dropped to 1:46.2, and now he drops 4 secs this year, despite only having a 400m pb (from this year!) of 48.14 and a 1500m pb of 3:48.95. So he seemingly doesn't have much in 400 speed and mediocre endurance, yet can now run a 1:42! Unbelievable.

I agree with a lot of this, although that doesn't preclude that there is also some doping at play.

With regards to the Paris track, am I wrong in presuming that this meet was not the same stadium as where the Olympics are being held on? It didn't look like it had a capacity big enough. If that is the case, then surely the Olympic track will be even faster!?

The comparison is that the host country usually gets away with some blatant doping. Farah, Rutherford, and Ennis-Hill were the three British track and field athletes rumored to have things covered up for (even heard a rumor that Ennis-Hill had a positive test at the Olympics that got swept under the rug), although they all were in fact favorites. This is no different than China and Russia at their respective Winter Olympics or Brazil when they hosted (see Thiago Braz). Tokyo was a weird Olympics, and the Japanese athletes didn't exactly show out in track and field, so I'm not sure there was really anything to cover up.

At this Olympics, look out for Cyrena Samba-Mayela in the 100 hurdles (0.37 second drop from last year, putting her at world #4), Anais Bourgoin in the 800 (now 1:58.xx after a 2.21 second drop from last year with a 2.43 drop from the year before), Agathe Guillemot in the 1,500 (5.21 second PR yesterday!), Alice Finot in the steeple (9:45 at 29, now runs 9:05 at 33 and is a medal threat), Gabriel Tual in the men's 800 (2.62 second drop this year), Azeddine Habz in the men's 1,500 (suspicious performance improvement post-COVID), Mael Gouyette in the men's 1,500 (now 3:32.xx, 7.82 second drop in last 2 years), and Jimmy Gressier in the 5,000 (14 second drop over last 2 years).

Your confidence on this matter being based on what? Coe weighed 126lb, one of the lightest athletes on the track, hardly the prototype of a steroid user. Ovett, Walker, Scott, etc, were all massive and far more muscular by comparison. They must have been steroid users too then?

He was one of the first to really focus on gym work, which is almost de rigueur amongst today's elite middle distance athletes. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that he doped or took steroids, unless you would like to present some, being as you are so confident!?

Are you British? Where did you hear these 'rumours', because I'm pretty clued up on home athletic scene, and have never heard any such rumours!

Farah, yes, most certainly rumours there, and I would have suspected him before hearing any of those rumours. I mean there is enough circumstantial evidence of what he was up to going back some way. And I would suggest that most fellow Brits involved in the sport at such a level would agree. But I think it is irresponsible to claim someone as having cheated because they've heard 'rumours.' As I've said earlier, both Ennis Hill and Rutherford had been in the world's top 3 for a few years prior to London. The list of French athletes you've highlighted to do not conform to the same established, long term ability of the Brits you've cited.

The Sebastian Coe guru obsessed have entered the cirque... And if only it stop there, these same posters are the biggest doping theorist of LRC.

Maybe one of them is this "Eliud Bekele" username that write ironic posts.

Nice to see the resident, clean sport crusader has finally decided to bless us with his most recent findings. You must have been busy doing research for this post so you haven't had time to inform us of a certain Jessica Hull from Australia who in the past year has miraculously been able to shave off 5-7 seconds and ran an impressive ~3:50 yesterday in the 1500.

Why don't you get back to us when you've done your 'research' on her progression from 2019 to yesterday, I will warn you that she's a blonde, white woman from Australia so don't you let her looks, her being white, throw you off, give us everything you've got on her like you wold were she not White like Mr. Gabriel Tual or the countless Kenyan athletes that live rent free in your mind and you constantly spam this site with. While you're at it there were also 5 other white athletes who ran the same 1500m race yesterday and shaved anywhere from 2-4 seconds off their personal bests, noting suspicious about that, don't you think?